Prachi Patankar
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Prachi Patankar is a
community activist Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from mandate build ...
, writer, and
educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...
. She was a cofounder of South Asia Solidarity Initiative, and 3rd I New York. Patankar has published articles on topics such as caste system in India,
Hindutva Hindutva (; ) is a Far-right politics, far-right political ideology encompassing the cultural justification of Hindu nationalism and the belief in establishing Hindu hegemony within India. The political ideology was formulated by Vinayak Da ...
,
racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...
,
cultural appropriation Cultural appropriation is the adoption of an element or elements of one culture or cultural identity, identity by members of another culture or identity in a manner perceived as inappropriate or unacknowledged. Such a controversy typically ari ...
,
foreign policy Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...
, and
international conflict Peace and conflict studies is a social science field that identifies and analyzes violent and nonviolent behaviors as well as the structural mechanisms attending conflicts (including social conflicts), to understand those processes which lead t ...
.


Early life and education

Prachi Patankar was born in
Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...
, a rural state in the western region of
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
. Prachi grew up in rural India, raised by a freedom-fighter grandmother and parents deeply involved in peasant social movements. She established a school for children of people displaced by dams. For two decades in New York City, she has been part of movements against war, police brutality, and racism.


Career

Prachi Patankar has worked for organizations concerned with social justice in New York City, the United States, Asia, and the wider world. She serves on the Board of CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities At the J.M.Kaplan Fund, she shaped the Foundation’s grantmaking strategies for criminal justice reform and immigrant rights. At the Brooklyn Community Foundation, she led a strategy focused on investing in youth, racial justice, and neighborhood-led grantmaking. Previously, Prachi worked at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and at the Tenement Museum. She is one of the founding members of South Asia Solidarity Initiative and 3rd I New York. South Asia Solidarity Initiative is an organization dedicated to educating and advocating about social justice issues related to South Asia. 3rd I New York was an organization that hosted a monthly showcase for film, video, and media presentations to advertise the diverse images of South and Central Asians, and, later, members of the Middle Eastern community.


Publications and Activism

Prachi Patankar has written numerous articles that have been published in
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
,
Al Jazeera Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN; , ) is a private-media conglomerate headquartered in Wadi Al Sail, Doha, funded in part by the government of Qatar. The network's flagship channels include Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, which pro ...
,
Women's Studies Quarterly ''Women's Studies Quarterly'', often referred to as ''WSQ'', is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal of women's studies that was established in 1972 and published by The Feminist Press. The Feminist Press was founded by Florence Howe in 1970 ...
, and many others. She has also appeared on Democracy Now. On the 2011 Occupy Wall Street Movement, Patankar noted, "I have never seen such commitment anytime before... Each day more and more people are joining the protests not only in New York but in many cities in America and Europe. People who were hardly activists are now finding themselves energized." Patankar has addressed issues of cultural appropriation, most notably in an article she wrote for jadaliyya.com. She mentions that the popularity of the practice of
yoga Yoga (UK: , US: ; 'yoga' ; ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated with its own philosophy in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain various salvation goals, as pra ...
in the United States has led the Hindu American Foundation to create a campaign entitled "Take Back Yoga," which dictates that yoga must be credited to
Hinduism Hinduism () is an Hypernymy and hyponymy, umbrella term for a range of Indian religions, Indian List of religions and spiritual traditions#Indian religions, religious and spiritual traditions (Sampradaya, ''sampradaya''s) that are unified ...
. Patankar notes how this is an Islamophobic sentiment, stating that "Neither contemporary 'yoga' nor 'Hinduism' is age-old or homogenous. Actually, both were assembled in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in interaction with British colonial realities." She brings the article to an important point on the topic of appropriation at large: "Of course, there is then anger about that too... about 'white people' assuming that a South Asian-looking person knows how to pronounce these
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
words. But aren’t many privileged South Asian Americans culturally appropriating and 'colonizing' the culture of peoples who actually live in South Asia?"


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Patankar, Prachi Living people New York University alumni Swarthmore College alumni Activists from New York City Year of birth missing (living people) American women writers of Indian descent American politicians of Indian descent 21st-century American women Indian emigrants to the United States American people of Marathi descent